Now, SSC students can start submitting admission forms

In yet another flip-flop, the state government allowed SSC students to submit their junior college online admission forms four days ahead of schedule on Thursday.

However, not everyone knows about the change in the submission date.

“Our school has only called us on Monday to fill in the forms. We were informed that the process was only open for non-SSC students before that,” said Priyanka Tibrewala, a student who cleared her Class 10 from Utpal Shanghvi School in Juhu.

Earlier, the department had said that SSC students would be able to begin submitting their forms only after getting their final mark sheets on June 27. But the department decided to allow SSC students to submit their forms on Thursday itself following calls from SSC parents who were confused because they were unable to submit their forms, even though non-SSC board students were allowed to do so.

“We were getting so many calls from frantic SSC students and parents that we thought we might as well allow everyone to submit their forms instead of opening it for state board students later,” said an official from the education department.

The department had earlier said that SSC students would not be able to submit their forms before students received their final mark sheets. “But it is unlikely that the board would have made a mistake about this. So we are allowing students to submit their forms based on the online mark sheets,” said the official.

So far 16,283 students have submitted their forms online. Schools have not reported any problems. “Everything has gone well so far,” said Rekha Vijayakar, director of Guru Harkrishan High School and Junior College in Santacruz. “I don’t know why the department was planning to delay SSC students’ submission to Monday. The mark list from the board’s data appears as soon as the student puts in their login and password.”

This is the third year that the junior college admission process is being conducted online. In the first year of the process students had to face a series of glitches.

Allow school exam takers to apply to jr colleges: CBSE

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has once again appealed to the state government to allow CBSE students who took the school exam instead of the board exam to apply to state junior colleges.

Two weeks ago, the education department had confirmed that it would not allow CBSE students who did not take the board exam to apply to junior colleges.

This is the first year that CBSE Class 10 students had the option to take a board exam or a school-held final exam. In Maharashtra, 15,969 CBSE students took the board exam while 5,680 opted for the school final exam.

“We are waiting for some headway,” said Avnita Bir, principal of RN Podar School, Santacruz, that is a guidance centre for CBSE students from outside the city.

The letter requests the Maharashtra state government to reconsider its decision in view of the fact that the Tamil Nadu government is willing to allow CBSE students who took the school final exam to enter the state board system in Class 11.

However, the Maharashtra government is not willing to change its stand. “There is no question of a change,” said V Radha, who is holding temporary charge as principal secretary of the school education department. “We studied all the CBSE circulars, and it is amply clear that they had told those students who might move out of the board to appear for the board exam.” The government lodged a caveat in court last week, pre-empting possible litigation from the CBSE.

The department’s stand is that it would be unfair to compare those who appeared for a standardised board exam with those who appeared for different school-based final exams.

The department has, however, said it will coordinate with schools to consider those CBSE students who took the school exam but whose parents have been recently transferred to Mumbai. “We will consider those cases separately,” said Radha.